Clinton files show worries over health care bill

A newly-disclosed batch of previously-secret documents from President Bill Clinton’s White House offer new details on that administration’s early failures that could serve as a reminder that any future presidential bid by former first lady Hillary Clinton will inevitably involve revisiting and perhaps even re-litigating a series of fights from the 1990s.

The roughly 4,000 pages made public Friday by the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock include internal musings by White House aides, including a warning that there was “great disquiet” on Capitol Hill about whether the Clintons understood the legislative process needed to enact the health care reform package known as the Health Security Act.

“To restate the obvious: While the substance is obviously controversial, there is apparently great disquiet in the capitol over whether we understand the inter-activity between reconciliation and health, procedurally, and in terms of timing and counting votes for both measures,” the memo stated. “We need strategic agreement among ourselves and. between us and the Hill on timing and process. This can work, but it will come apart if we don’t get these pieces right.”

The document release comes after POLITICO reported Tuesday that about 33,000 pages of records withheld as confidential advice given to President Clinton or exchanged among his top advisers, along with information about candidates for appointments to federal office, were still unavailable to the public even though the legal basis to withhold them under the Presidential Records Act ran out in January 2013 — 12 years after Clinton left office.

A White House official said Tuesday that lawyers there had approved release of about 25,000 of the 33,000 previously-withheld pages.

The remainder of the roughly 25,000 pages are expected to be posted online in the next couple of weeks. The White House has extended the deadline on the additional 8,000 pages until March 26, the National Archives said earlier this week.

The larger body of records includes papers potentially more sensitive than those released Friday. Some of the previously-withheld documents are legal memoranda about the Whitewater investigation and other independent counsel investigations. Those files were not among those being released Friday.

The list of files disclosed Friday suggested they would touch on how Clinton’s team dealt with foreign policy crises, as well as Al Qaeda strikes that preceded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The records do describe preparations for U.S. military action in Haiti in 1994 and discussions of how to explain the move to the American public.

However, the only new document released in the 9/11-related file pertained not to that event, but to a decision not to send an additional note or gift to King Hussein of Jordan when he was at the Mayo Clinic being treated for cancer that would claim his life a few months later.

“Sounds like too much crepe hanging,” a Clinton aide wrote, recommending against the step.

A variety of Al Qaeda-related documents remain withheld on grounds that they’re classified for national security reasons.

Documents released in connection with a Freedom of Information Act request on Hillary Clinton’s work on children’s issues and women’s rights includes insight into her staff’s public-relations strategy heading into Bill Clinton’s campaign for reelection.